The Mysteries of Udolpho

Emily followed to the parlour, where the nuns were assembled, to whom

the abbess committed her, saying, 'This is a daughter, for whom I have

much esteem; be sisters to her.'

They passed on in a train to the chapel, where the solemn devotion, with

which the service was performed, elevated her mind, and brought to it

the comforts of faith and resignation.

Twilight came on, before the abbess's kindness would suffer Emily to

depart, when she left the convent, with a heart much lighter than she

had entered it, and was reconducted by La Voisin through the woods, the

pensive gloom of which was in unison with the temper of her mind; and

she pursued the little wild path, in musing silence, till her guide

suddenly stopped, looked round, and then struck out of the path into the

high grass, saying he had mistaken the road. He now walked on quickly,

and Emily, proceeding with difficulty over the obscured and uneven

ground, was left at some distance, till her voice arrested him, who

seemed unwilling to stop, and still hurried on. 'If you are in doubt

about the way,' said Emily, 'had we not better enquire it at the chateau

yonder, between the trees?'

'No,' replied La Voisin, 'there is no occasion. When we reach that

brook, ma'amselle, (you see the light upon the water there, beyond the

woods) when we reach that brook, we shall be at home presently. I don't

know how I happened to mistake the path; I seldom come this way after

sun-set.'

'It is solitary enough,' said Emily, 'but you have no banditti here.'

'No, ma'amselle--no banditti.' 'What are you afraid of then, my good friend? you are not

superstitious?' 'No, not superstitious; but, to tell you the truth,

lady, nobody likes to go near that chateau, after dusk.' 'By whom is it

inhabited,' said Emily, 'that it is so formidable?' 'Why, ma'amselle,

it is scarcely inhabited, for our lord the Marquis, and the lord of all

these find woods, too, is dead. He had not once been in it, for these

many years, and his people, who have the care of it, live in a cottage

close by.' Emily now understood this to be the chateau, which La Voisin

had formerly pointed out, as having belonged to the Marquis Villeroi, on

the mention of which her father had appeared so much affected. '

Ah! it is a desolate place now,' continued La Voisin, 'and such a

grand, fine place, as I remember it!' Emily enquired what had occasioned

this lamentable change; but the old man was silent, and Emily, whose

interest was awakened by the fear he had expressed, and above all by

a recollection of her father's agitation, repeated the question, and

added, 'If you are neither afraid of the inhabitants, my good friend,

nor are superstitious, how happens it, that you dread to pass near that

chateau in the dark?'